Post navigation

Welcome to Online Carols 2014 #OnlineCarols14 by @onlinepraise

Maybe you can’t get to church easily this year, or feel uncomfortable about going. Maybe you don’t like crowds. Maybe you know one of the contributors. Maybe you just really, really like carols… whatever your reason, you are welcome here.

Each prayer, reading or carol will appear on this site in the form of a post (like this one you’re reading) from 2pm GMT on Christmas Eve. At the end of each one click on the site’s title at the top of the page and the page will reload, revealing the next post.

Feel free to comment on this blog below each post (if you’ve got something nice to say that is!) or tweet using #onlinecarols14 or write on our Facebook wall – we would love to interact with you! There will be a retiring collection for Shelter, please give generously if you can.

Most of the posts use embedded YouTube, Bandcamp or Soundcloud media. Here’s a song to listen to while you wait, with words by @tjathurman and music by @artsyhonker:

I walked in darkness. Many a lonely mile,
my eyes and footsteps hesitant and blind.
I sought a kindly light I did not find
in land or ocean, asking all the while
if lightless lives are taken in exchange
for light eternal; still the shades of sight
would whisper, “Even I shall see the light!”
I never thought the light would look so strange.
Not in a temple, echoing and awed,
Nor in a palace, glistening and grand,
Nor in my home, nor any friendly land.
But distant, dirty, in a shed abroad,
I met a maiden bloody from a birth
and in her arms, the light of all the earth.